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Posted June 4, 2008 11:30 pm

A sensible decision

SCORE ONE for nature in the ongoing struggle to find balance between development and wetlands preservation in Southeast Georgia.

Unless a landowner is in the business of farming trees - including replanting harvested timberland - that person must go through the Clean Water Act permit process. That will ensure that the clear cutting of trees does not damage sensitive freshwater habitats.

This is the gist of a sensible ruling last month by Senior U.S. District Judge B. Avant Edenfield.

His decision in a dispute over tree-cutting does not unduly tread on private property rights.

A landowner may still cut timber under the provisions of the federal court decision.

The landowner, however, must go through the permit process when the timber grows in or along a navigable waterway, and take steps to avoid polluting.

Judge Edenfield's position runs counter to the practice of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at least in the specific case of Cypress Lake.

The owners of the several-hundred acre lake near Statesboro hoped to clear-cut about 60 acres of the lake for more open water. They planned to shred the timber into garden mulch.

At issue in the suit, filed by Ogeechee-Canoochee Riverkeeper, Inc., was whether the forest management plan filed by the landowner qualified as tree farming.

The plan equated harvesting with farming, the Riverkeepers claimed, and it contained inadequate provisions for the regrowth of the bottomland forest - a key factor in determining eligibility for a waiver of the Clean Water Act requirements.

While the court does not take sides on whether the regrowth provisions were adequate, Judge Edenfield does point out that the Corps of Engineers acted capriciously, without explaining how its decision jived with the facts before it.

(In a letter to the Corps, the Riverkeepers had cited a study by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that showed the Cypress Lake landowners' regeneration method had proved ineffective in similar forests in Louisiana and Florida.)

Thus, the federal court decision holds the Corps of Engineers' feet to the fire when it comes to preserving wetlands.

It says those charged with protecting the nation's sensitive ecosystems must have good, provable reasons for setting those protections aside.

That's just good sense - and a good addition to the canon of wetlands protections in an environment of increasing development pressures.